Spammers hijack

[magoo1]

We all know Berlingo forum has been hit by spammers but was that a front?

Was their real aim to hack into the members database to obtain the emails addresses. I am getting this on a regular basis,.

Is this happening to anyone else?

A copy of one of the emails 

gongonn has just started a new thread in Member Submitted Tutorials & How To's. This is a forum you have subscribed to at Berlingo Forum.

The thread is titled TELE @SELLDEADFULLZ SELL FULLZ DEAD UK WITH BANK ACCOUNT ICQ 713086896

Here is an excerpt of the message:
--
Hi all !
I have UK fullz dead , if u want to buy i have:

[ItsGreen]

I think your email address is safe. That looks like you've got a subscription set on the forum to send you a message if there's a new thread in an area of the forum.

https://www.berlingoforum.com/usercp.php...scriptions this page should give you the option to change the selection.

[Zion]

Exactly right. If any spammer (or anyone indeed) posts a reply, in any thread you have ever posted in, then you get an email. That is normal, unless you unsubscribe as ItsGreen says above.

We ban them as soon as they post. So there's nothing to worry about, they get booted but often just join again. We ban their email address so it gets harder for them but not impossible to rejoin.

[Tree]

Are these bots or do you not know?

If so - can capture be built into the sign up process or an extreme can all new sign ups be disabled for a week or two?

[Zion]

Not sure if human or not. This has been proposed to the site owner that he sets up a moderation of all new posts by all new users by the mods, but it has not been implemented yet.

It's not that we don't know what to do, but that the measures required have not been put in place by the owners as of yet. There are plans to change the system the board runs on so that is the reason for not changing things yet.

It's likely these are real people, as the sign up and post process takes steps like acknowledging an email to join and then creating a profile, then posting a message or thread. Knowing what I do about programming, it would be far easier to pay people to sit and join up forums and post stuff. A dollar per site for example.

Most of the spam we get (and Brodfather & I ban a lot more than you all realise before you even see the spam, but can't watch the forum 24/7) is from the USA, India and Vietnam. Probably because we changed over to a dot-com address from dot co dot UK, so attractive to spammers who think the size of the US audience is likely to see their adverts.

Most of it is a cheap attempt to get free advertising or exposure to potential customers, the rest is scams.

[magoo1]

Thanks for the answers,

I had one subscribed thread now deleted.

see what happens

[Zion]

No worries. You have 44 posts and 13 threads of your own. If a spammer posts in the threads where you have those 44 posts across the forum, or in your own 13 threads, or in any thread you're still subscribed to, you will get an email in the same way you do if anyone posted a reply. It's just the board letting you know there's been a reply. It's not a direct spam attack on you.

The PHP board software does not know a spammer from a genuine user. People have to realise that, I'm afraid.

[Gryffindor]

When you get to the point of banning an email address, what about launching a DoS attack against it? The address itself must be throwaway anyway, but emails from (and to) it have to be served up.

[Zion]

That ban is embedded in the forum PHP code. If we could (the forum) launch a DoS attack on it (which means endlessly pinging an IP address, not an email address so technically impossible) we would have been attacking the company server hosting the email , not the individual using it. We would then be guilty of an offence under the Communications Act 2003 and the owners could be prosecuted.

Individuals can impersonate genuine users and phish or spam people anonymously, hard to stop. If a legitimate company did that, it's jail time. We can't hide. We have a registered public IP address.

Spammers don't.

[Gryffindor]

aww shame